Report: PepsiCo pre-orders 100 units of the Tesla electric semi truck

Tesla’s recently unveiled the electric Tesla semi truck and it has apparently taken the world by storm, with orders for the trucks coming from DHL, Walmart, Canadian grocery chain Loblaws, and Anheuser-Busch. Now PepsiCo joins in and tops the list with what CNBC is calling ‘the largest pre-order yet’: an order for a fleet of 100 electric trucks reserved before they start rolling out in 2019.

All these multi-billion companies placing pre-orders can be seen as a vote of confidence in Tesla’s product as well as the price. The Tesla semi trucks will cost between $150,000 and $180,000 (depending on range), with a fancy “Founders Series” of semis priced from $200,000. While those numbers definitely seem higher than a standard diesel truck, lower operating and maintenance costs for the Tesla semi truck may save companies close to $250,000 for every million miles of use, Tesla claims.

Each reservation warrants a $20,000 deposit, so that’s an assured $2 million in Tesla’s wallet now. And if the trucks end up selling for $150,000, PepsiCo would owe Tesla a good $15 million. (Given Tesla ‘flexibility’ on shipping dates, it is definitely going to vary.)

But Tesla isn’t the only company betting big on electric semis. As you might expect, giants like Mercedes and Cummins are both coming up with their own takes on clean energy delivery fleet vehicles. For now, anyways, the Tesla semi truck seems to have the clear advantage in terms of range, which is definitely why the pre-orders are already… rolling in.

It might just be a matter of time till more industry big-wigs step up to pre-order some of them Tesla Semi trucks. Could it be rival Coca-Cola? InBev? Nestle? Kool-Aid owners Kraft? It’s a waiting game now.